Perspective

Once again, it have been three weeks since I posted. And once again I wish it were less. But now, once again with adult beverage in hand, I am posting on my blog.

We have begun work on our house. Serious work on our house. (pictures to follow) We are replacing our porch. It is - or should I say, it WAS - rotten. Termites had come and gone (even THEY couldn't handle how nasty it had gotten). Good solid wood had been reduced to literal powder. It was a desperate situation. But thanks to a lot of work and the legend that is J.D. Delp Carpenty (my dad), things are starting to turn around.

However, that takes times, hard work, commitment and specifically WEEKENDS. So while our weeks are crazy as usual, now our weekends are crazy too. Missy and I looked at our schedules yesterday and we have "stuff" (for lack of a better word) from now until the middle of June. Straight. And then I think we only have A weekend open. Then I think we are busy until sometime in 2019.

All of that to say, our lives have been nuts (hence the gap in posting). And will be nuts (hence the likelihood of another gap). However, amid the tempest that is our lives is one beautiful innocent child. Riley.

Right now he is teething (again). And he is getting over a cold (again). And he is living HIS life oblivious to the stress and busy-ness of our lives. And unintentionally, he is constantly reminding us that our lives are more than meetings, projects and porches.

All of this came to light for me in a pure moment three weeks ago. Missy and I were spending our nights (after Riley went to bed) staining the floor boards in preparation for the big day when we were ripping out the old and putting in the new. Riley was in the midst of his teething/cold. That meant Riley (and consequentlythe whole family) wasn't sleeping well. Riley had started to cry pretty hard and so Missy went up to comfort him. I, of course, needed to keep staining because D-day was fast approaching. However, Riley's cries didn't subside after Missy got up there. I kept waiting for them to go away. I kept staining. He continued to cry. I continued to stain.

Finally, I reached one of those small moments where a decision needed to be made. Work or family. Porch or child. This wasn't a life or death moment. But I had to make a decision between continuing to stain or joining the rest of my family and leaving the project and delaying its completion.

I joined Missy and Riley in his room. We all held each other and sang "Jesus Loves Me" about 20 times in a row. It was a Delp family moment.

Eventually Riley fell back asleep and we went back to staining. However, I think we had a renewed perspective. If the porch didn't get done this weekend, it wasn't the end of the world. We bought this house in large part because we wanted a place for our son, and our family, to grow. We (or at least I) lost sight that the reason we were doing all of this work didn't care if the porch got done or not. He just needed to be held and comforted and loved.

So Riley, once again, thanks for giving me perspective. Thanks for reminding me that a porch is temporary but memories of marathon sessions of "Jesus Loves Me" will last forever. Thanks for reminding me. Now please get the rest of your teeth ASAP.